How To Decorate a Picture

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Have you purchased a painting or painted one yourself? Have you received a painting as a gift? Naturally, you want to choose a frame that will emphasize all the merits of the picture. You need the picture to attract attention, stand out, and, at the same time, harmoniously blend into the surrounding space.

The choice of the frame is not only a utilitarian value. It is also an art. The frame creates a perspective for the picture, frames it with a certain artistic environment and separates the picture from the wall.

To choose a good frame, you need to understand the following principles of decorating a picture.

  1. Frame is selected for painting, not for interior. The paintings are durable, and the frame will give an opportunity in the future to outweigh the picture elsewhere.
  2. The frame and the picture should be harmoniously combined in color and tone. In the case of choosing a frame that corresponds to the main color of the picture, the frame can be semitone lighter or darker than the picture itself. If the frame is not the main color, then the frame color and the additional color of the picture must match.


Landscape In Frame


  1. You need to consider the color of the picture. Warm coloring (a predominance of red, brown, yellow tones) requires decoration in a baguette frame of warm shades. A cold color pattern (blue, purple, gray tones) — in a frame of cold shades. Gold frames can be selected for warm paintings, silver ones for cold ones.


Portrait In Frame    Still Life In Frame


  1. The style of the frame and the picture must match.
  2. It is necessary to take into account in what technique the image was made and what materials were used in creating that image. The way of the designing the paintings depends on this idea. For example, oil paintings are often simply framed. Pastels and graphics often require a preliminary design in the mat and are better kept under the glass. If for the decoration of painting they often use classical motifs and motifs of the Empire (oak leaves, bandaging several branches of plants) or baroque with elements of rozans, rocaille motives, etc., then the baguette for graphics remains strict and low-profile.
  3. If there are several paintings on the wall, the baguettes, like the pictures, should be combined in style.
  4. The alternation of warm and cold works is beautiful in the expositions
  5. It is necessary to follow the rule: the larger the size of the picture, the more narrow a frame for it must be.

Which frame to choose: wooden or plastic?

There is no univocal answer to this question.

In spite of the coating color, the wood gives warm notes to your interior, gives a feeling of home and coziness. It is impossible not to estimate the uniqueness of such design. The painting, done by brush on canvas looks very harmonious and vividly in a wooden frame. At the same time, wooden frames are usually much more expensive and heavier than plastic ones and require care. On the other hand, the range of plastic frames in the art supply store is much wider, for they are lighter and moisture resistant. But plastic frames are very fragile and when they are accidentally dropped, they scatter into pieces and cannot be repaired.

A non-standard solution is to decorate the picture in a forged frame. The picture in this frame will look like an antique decoration and will be appreciated by your guests.

How to make a frame for pictures with your own hands

 Very simple, fast and cheap way, which is used by many artists.

  1. Buy a length of batten (molding) in any home improvement store. The width of the molding must not be less than the width of the underframe of the picture. It is better to take the lengths of frame 0.5 cm (1/5 inch) wider than the underframe.
  2. Choose the stain of the color you need. Cover the molding with stain one or two times. Or you can paint them with acrylic paint.


straps for a picture


  1. Nail the molding along the perimeter of the underframe.


Picture In Wood Frame


  1. As a result, get a picture framed in a wooden frame almost for free.


Picture In Wood Frame


You can also order a ready wooden frame in art supply store and paint it yourself (with stain or acrylic paints). This will cost 3–4 times cheaper than buying a wooden frame in a frame shop.

Decoration of paintings in the Framing Workshops

If you do not have the experience of decorating pictures, the best is to bring the picture to a framing workshop and already there to pick up the frame. This will give you the opportunity to experiment and once again visually check all the described principles in practice. In this case, do not hesitate to ask for help from the master of the framing workshop or the salon manager. Having a great experience of choosing baguettes and knowing the properties of their products, they can help you in case of any difficulty, offer unexpected, but, as a rule, interesting design options.


Still Life In Frame


What is the difference in frames?

Depending on the manufacturing technology, frames are divided into carved and molded frames.

The carved frames are solid. The decor is cut directly on the frame tree. It is part of the frame itself. The manufacturing process is very laborious.

Molded frames or baguettes are artistic frames with overhead mastic ornamentation. The ornament is not cut out, but is inserted on the frame in the form of a special marix — mastic. Mastic is very durable. Its composition includes chalk, casein glue, drying oil, filler (wood flour or paper), pigment for tone.

After the appearance of baguettes, the production of frames became easier. Carved frames were used only for decoration of museum and collection works.

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Modern technologies of manufacturing frames can satisfy almost any stylistic and color preferences. And the trends are such that they allow you to break the “laws” given in this article, wear old paintings into modern frames and, vice versa, to select old frames for modern painting. So do not be afraid, experiment with colors, combinations of shapes and reliefs. This, in fact, is very exciting.

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